Strategies for Performance

Like many growing technology companies, we frequently wrestle with performance and scalability of our offerings. In our case, we're tied pretty tightly to Microsoft; a hold over from a time when the products were built using Access. We've since moved on to Visual Basic, c#, .Net, and SQL Server, but we are not platform agnostic.

We're also taking steps to move off a pure client-server architecture, and to an n-tier architecture delivered through a browser. Typically our applications have a small number of users who submit long running queries. There are two primary stress points for performance, loading the data repository, and running queries (reports).

We are attacking the problem across several fronts. First, we're throwing hardware at it. Second, we are upgrading the OS and database platform. And finally, we are optimizing the applications. Note that we are not considering using a server farm for the application servers. We believe the low number of hits to the web apps make scaling the application server a lower priority.

Throwing hardware at the problem is the easiest and quickest way to scale. In our case, that means moving the application server to a separate box, and purchasing more power. More memory, more speed, and more processors. We all know, however, that this type of solution simply covers up bottlenecks in the application.

We are also stepping up to SQL Server 2005. In the standard edition, which most of our customers deploy, SQL Server 2005 will use 4 CPUs and as much memory as the OS can give it. Some of our customers are CPU and memory bound when using SQL Server 2000. Stepping up to 2005 is a significant boost. SQL Server 2005 also runs on Windows 2003 64 bit.

The 64 bit OS appears, in our sample testing, to give a huge performance boost. Unfortunately, it also gives us problems with some of our applications. Most significantly, we have not successfully deployed .Net 1.1 on the OS. Therefore, all our web applications must be migrated to Visual Studio 2005. We found that moving our web applications from VS 2003 to VS 2005 required some work. We are still trying to work through problems with deployment projects for these applications. Our Visual Basic legacy clients flat out do not run in the Terminal Services environment.

Finally, we are confronting the code in the applications themselves. The products have evolved from a client-server architecture. The software requires an active user that performs key functions synchronously. We will move file operations and reporting to asynchronous classes. This frees up the UI and gives the user a responsive experience. But asynchronous does not make queries run faster. Improving query performance requires reviews of the execution plan, indexes, and index views.

It is tedious work, but it will payoff in greater revenue.

New Year Resolution

January 2007. A new year; a fresh start. OK, not exactly a fresh start. There is plenty of carry-over stress from 2006. But a lot is new too. My first, recently acquired, has a bright a new future as part of a much bigger family. We are also taking a fresh look a engineering software...adapting to the "Web 2.0" (now there's tired phrase) and adopting iterative development practices.

We had spent much of 2006 recruiting talent, reducing dependence on consulting, and introducing an aggressive slate of products. Now the challenge is tying our offering into a cohesive suite of applications that are scalable and easy to deploy. This includes our push to migrate legacy software written in Visual Basic (yes VB 6.0 client/server) to a current infrastructure. This challenge is as much political as technical.

So the resolution? It's sharing the experience, the same resolution made (and not kept) a year ago. This year my goal is to share both positive and negative experiences, thoughts, and ideas. Topics will include recruiting talent, migrating legacy code, engineering methods, and things I just don't foresee. And I'll try to leave my personal goals (fighting my waistline, renovating my home) out...usually.

In any case, here's to yet another new year and another resolution to keep or break (time will tell).